Main menu

Monthly Archives: December 2014

Post navigation

I was supposed to give you a code so you would be able to watch my episode of The Quilt Show yesterday. There is a little delay in getting this code from The Quilt Show, but as soon as I get it, I will pass it along to you! In the meantime, you could do the puzzle they made out of my quilt “After The Wedding.” Choose the 100 piece NON-rotating–its fun!

I started the piece with the feathers. I have to admit, its more fun to think about feathers than to actually quilt them. With quilting the feathers comes the angst of what do I put in between them??

In the measure twice, cut once department, I thought it was going to hang at least 10 inches over the edge of the table. It only hangs 5 inches over. Not sure what happened there. But its cheery and I got to play with some of that Christmas fabric and actually FINISH a Christmas project (don’t ask me how many unfinished Christmas tops I have.)

And I did finally get my rug hooking out, and I am “hooked” on pulling loops. Can’t stop! So I am almost done filling in the dark crosses on this double cross rug. And then comes the fun (and more challenging) part of filling in the lighter, brighter crosses. (I love it when my close-up pictures are so clear that the inevitable dog hair also shows clearly.)

Yesterday I was missing my sewing machine, so I went back out to the studio and sewed together the leftover strips from the table runner into a giant random log cabin block, and put a wide border of “snow” (my favorite soft white Kona fabric) around it. I put the wide border around it because my BF and I had been commiserating about how much we love feathers. So if I get this quilted, it will have feathers, and I will show it to you.

I’m having fun on my Quilter’s Holiday. I hope you are giving yourself a little time to do what you really love during this special time of the year.

Today was the day my episode launched on The Quilt Show! It was so much fun to watch. They did such an excellent job of filming and keeping it natural. As far as I could tell, there was no editing. The day we shot the episode, I remember once or twice starting a segment over because it wasn’t flowing the way they wanted it to, but once they got it down, it seems like it stayed that way. If you watch, you will see the natural “errors” like when I said “the opposite of contrasting” because I couldn’t think of the word “matching.” Egads. We talked about a lot besides quilting–my blogging, weight loss, dogs, the construction of the studio, and at the end (you have to wait for the After Set) Ricky and I talk about our ancient history in the world of dog shows. As far as what I demo’d, I showed how I cut out circles free hand, and zig zag appliqué by machine without fusible, and then talked about fabric and thread choices, and demo’d a few simple embroidery stitches. It all seems like pretty simple stuff to me. But put it all together, and it makes some pretty art 🙂 Remember, if you are not a member of the quilt show, you will be able to see it on Dec. 15th. I will have a password for you to use to watch the show.

Setting up my demo’s

What was truly fun for me is that this show came out the same week as my 60th birthday–a rather momentous birthday. And the second segment on “my” show was about a woman quilter, Laurie Hill Gibb, who, for her 65th birthday, decided to travel the country for a whole year in her van. This is something I have truly thought about doing ever since I was in junior high school and read Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley.” Steinbeck had a standard poodle named Charley (I named one of my standard poodles Charlie) and he traveled around the country with Charley in his camper. I do think that 65 will be a goal for me to do something like this!

About this time of year, I start to feel a bit of angst. All of this celebratin’ puts a cramp in the forward movement of my art. I want to enjoy working on mindless projects. I want to have fun decorating and celebrating. But I also want to keep working on my art. And then I usually give in and work on the fun mindless projects, and I realize its only a few weeks. My art won’t just disappear in three weeks time. And its such a relief. I was discussing this with my BF, and she came up with that brilliant statement, “Even artists need a holiday.” I need to have that tattooed on my forehead, because evidently I can’t remember it from year to year.

Anyway, the first thing that I worked on was this quilt that I started a couple of years ago, when I took a class from Pepper Cory on the “Manx Roof Tile Quilt,” a type of folded log cabin. (And I just want to say that if you are interested in learning this technique, Pepper was an EXCELLENT teacher!) I wanted to use my dad’s pendleton shirts to make a memory quilt. You might remember that last year I used his shirts and ties to make pillows for my brother and sister. My quilt project got put away when construction on the new studio began, and I just found the box of blocks a few weeks ago.

Like most handwork, once you get into the rhythm of it, it moves along quite quickly. I began to think that if I could do one block each evening, I could finish it before Christmas. I didn’t do one EVERY evening, but I did work consistently on them, and when it looked like I could complete the blocks, it got quite exciting!

I was so excited the evening I put them on the design wall, and saw the pattern emerge. When I was working on the blocks, I wasn’t sure I had enough definition between the “darks” of the shirts and the “lights” of the reproduction fabrics. (I decided NOT to use the ties for this project because silk is just a pain to work with. And I do love reproduction fabrics.)

I wanted to make a border by adding an extra large “binding.” Looked in my stash, and there it was–one of my most favorite “repeater” fabrics. Repeater fabrics are those fabrics that I love so much that I just keep buying a yard or two every time I see it.

It took a little figuring to figure out how to make this binding, but in the end, I am so happy with this little quilt. It will be the quilt I cuddle under all winter.

The finished quilt:

The next fun project I let myself work on was a little table runner out of those darn Christmas fabrics that I can’t resist buying! I’ll be back later to share that with you.

The Quilt Show–Wanted to mention that my episode of The Quilt Show will be airing this Monday, December 8! If you are already a member, you can watch it then. If not, on Monday the 15th, I will be able to give you a code so that you can watch it. Also, I will just add that I am a huge fan of The Quilt Show, and it is a super good deal to pay $42.95 for a one year membership, and get access to all 200 shows! They have a wide range of quilters from traditional to abstract, with lots of good techniques demonstrated. Its a great resource. Plus its just fun to watch with a bowl of popcorn 🙂